From Deseret News archives:
Web whiz enters the Meosphere
About Utah
Contrary to outward appearances, if his idea is as good as he hopes it is, and his business model is as good as it needs to be, he could soon be reaching a potential customer base in the billions.
His product? A Web site called Meosphere.
At Meosphere, which was up and running as of the day before yesterday, people can essentially write their own life story, with the cool parts left in and the boring and undesirable parts left out.
It's the Been There Done That Web page.
Think MySpace with a resume and without the flirting.
Eliason, 34, physically cringes at the comparison to MySpace. "What we're trying to do is something specifically unique," he says.
But Eliason wouldn't mind approaching anything remotely close to the success of the ego-driven, teen-dominated MySpace, with well more than 100 million users and over a billion page views every day.
In the new flat world, phenomenal traffic is never out of the question.
All you need is a newer, better mousetrap/Web site, and Eliason, who got his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, in Philadelphia, was willing to leave life as a successful business consultant to become an out-of-work Web-site inventor in the hopes that he's made such a newer, better mousetrap/Web site.
"You never know in this business," he says, "but here goes."
"The scariest part is my wife isn't scared," he adds. "Everything's always worked before, so she figures this will too."
Eliason and his small staff — he has two employees plus contracted programmers in India and development partners in France — have been holed up in their cubes in Kaysville since August, compiling data for Meosphere. They're up to 1,831 lists so far and over 200,000 places. The lists include everything from "Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die" to "The 100 Best Novels." The places include just about everywhere you might have been or might want to go.
People who create their own personal Meosphere at www.meosphere.com — at no cost — can check off where they've been and what they've done and can write about it to their heart's content.
As Eric explains, "there is no space problem" in cyberspace.
It's all driven by ad revenue. Some of the places and things on Meosphere are accompanied by advertisements for those very places and things. Click on an ad, Eliason gets paid.
Meosphere may not be for everyone, but for anyone who wants to keep a diary of their life's experiences or likes to check things off lists or likes to find lists of places to go and things to do (how about "Top Fifteen Attractions in San Francisco?") it could be just the ticket.
"It's a place for bragging rights," adds Eliason. "It may not be socially acceptable to sit down at lunch and start talking about yourself and what you've done, but if you exchange Meosphere addresses, that's OK."
And if enough people do that, Eliason is going to have plenty to brag about himself.
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.
